On Wings Of Broken Moonlight
by Artemisdesari
Summary: Dean's always been of a volatile temperament, but when he starts changing is it really for the best? And is it Castiel's fault, or the act of another interested party? Possible Dean/Castiel because it's me.
1. Chapter 1

_So I'm a little bit wary of posting a new story so close to the start of the new season. It's flittering through my mind constantly at the moment though and I figured I would post a teaser prologue to gauge interest and reactions to it. It's not like me to be so leary of it but I've been burnt by our show before and I'm seriously worried about our angel right now as it stands. _

_I also wrote this in my half hour lunch break on my phone. I love my job, but today was all the evil that four blocked sinks can provide. It's a very special kind of Hell, that._

**_Disclaimer:_**_ I hear you're planning to kill the angel I love, so I'm, like, screw you. I guess the love of this fangirl was never enough, so screw you and go to Hell too. (I'm not bitter or angry about the rumours or anything. Nooo.)_

On Wings of Broken Moonlight

Shattered and broken a fallen angel lies in a cornfield. About him are beaten and flattened stalks that when later viewed will clearly be in the shape of tattered wings. Rumpled and bloodied clothes cover his prone body, his chest unmoving and his skin sallow in the moonlight.

In the distance two men can be heard calling the angel's name, one calm and a little wary while the other is more frantic. When they do find the angel it is only due to the fact that the taller of the two stumbles upon the cleared area, his mossy eyes falling on the body and for a moment an emotion flickers through his eyes that could be called relief. Then he is calling a different name, that of his brother, and crashing follows until he is joined by the shorter man. His reaction to the crumpled angel is loud, full of cursing and anger. The hunter falls to his knees beside the angel, lays his hand at the pulse point at the fallen one's throat only to be engulfed by a flash of light and heat.

The younger can only close his eyes and shield his face.

_Interested?_

_Artemis_


	2. Chapter 2

_Sorry this took me so long to get up, as you can well imagine 7.01 and 7.02 completely broke my heart and brain. I'm getting it back now, though, and I'm determined to write this. So I've fixed things without actually telling you how the boys managed it (I'm sure I'll work it out later). Also, I've read through this as best I can, but I have the most horrific flu I've had in years at the moment so if anything seems really strange or bizarre let me know and I'll fix it when I'm better._

Nothing is the same as it was, Dean muses as he stares at his reflection in the mirror. Green eyes are framed with dark circles, even though he has been unconscious for five days, and his hand trembles as he reaches up to remove the itchy mess of a five day beard. Castiel is still out of it and Dean finds himself praying that it is simply the exhaustion of fighting against the chief leviathan that is keeping the angel that way. The hunter is not sure what he would do if he thought he had freed Castiel only to lose him again anyway.

It took a lot of effort, even more fast talking, for them to find what they needed to drive the ancient creature out of Castiel's body, and too long for them to kill it once it was weakened. It has been done, however, and now all that Dean and his broken family can do is sit and wait to see if the being that wakes up is Castiel or a mere shadow of the angel. Part of the hunter almost hopes that the struggle against the leviathan has left Cas bereft of his grace, as powerless and human as all the rest of them, it is petty and a little vindictive, something that Dean can often be, but Dean almost thinks that as this point Castiel would be happier to be human rather than an angel again.

His attention turns from his thoughts on the angel and back to the need to shave and he is surprised to see, when he looks again, that even in his distraction he has managed to remove the beard that he had found so irritating. Usually Dean would question that, would wonder how he could manage to do it without even catching himself with the razor, but on this particular day he has infinitely more important things to worry about and he quits the bathroom with only one thought, with only the thought that he needs to get to Cas as quickly as he can. He needs to be there when the angel wakes up and something tells him that it will be sooner rather than later.

It turns out that he is not wrong on that count.

He perches on the edge of Castiel's bed, able to feel Sam's concerned eyes burning into him and for the briefest of moments he wishes that his brother were more blind to the things that Dean thinks and feels. Sam reads him like an open book at the best of times, knows Dean better than the hunter knows himself some days, and this is hardly the sort of time when Dean can keep emotions from playing over his face. Instead he does his best to ignore the feel of his brother's worried presence, settles for placing his hand on Castiel's chest over his heart and whispering the angel's name. Something in him is reaching out to Cas, yearning to get that little bit closer and calling to the angel even as the name slips from the hunters lips once more.

"Dean," the utterance of his name is hard, panicked, as Castiel's eyes shoot open and the angel bolts upright. There is terror all over his face and his body is tense as he stares at the hunter. "Is this another of your tortures?" Cas demands, moving away from him. "Is this another way for you to try and destroy me?"

"It's gone, Cas," Dean assures him, pulling the angel close and finding him pliant under his hands in a way that Castiel rarely is. "Sam and me drove it out of you and killed it."

He should be angry, Dean thinks, should still be furious at Castiel for everything that happened and everything that the angel did. He finds that he cannot be. Cas made a terrible mistake and did some terrible things, but when it mattered he tried to fix that, when it mattered he admitted that he had been wrong and asked for help. Dean cannot think of a worse punishment than to be trapped in your own skin with no control over your actions as a creature of great evil stalks the world using your form. He is still put out with Cas, completely unimpressed with the angel's ultimate solution to his problems, but at this moment it is not something that they need to discuss and he envelopes Castiel in a hug that has been too long in coming.

Cas clings to him in return, slender fingers curling in the well-worn fabric of Dean's shirt and tiny shuddering breaths ghost over the exposed skin of the hunter's throat as the angel sobs his relief upon realising that he is free of the leviathan. That he is free and that Dean still cares. It is relief that makes the man cling that much more tightly to the angel he could have lost. Castiel is his friend, the closest friend that Dean has ever had, and no matter what he may have said to his brother and Bobby he was never going to be fine with his loss. Just having him back now, seemingly well and whole, is more than Dean could have hoped for.

Consequently, for the first time in his life, he is content to let Castiel cling to him for longer than is strictly appropriate even though he knows that Sam will not let him live it down later.

It is only hours later when Dean is ambushed on a routine supply run in town, eight demons appearing from behind his car as the hunter makes his way over from the store with enough bags to make a fight a very bad idea. Nevertheless, the hunter cannot afford to be captured, knows that it will take too long for Sam or Bobby to get here and that he has little option but to call Castiel and hope that the angel is able to help even weakened as he currently is.

He sends out a brief prayer, although whether it is more a case of asking Cas for help or hoping that he angel hears him the hunter does not know, drops his bags and throws himself at the gathered demons. He hears bottles shatter on the ground, sees the one of the demons in the body of a teenage boy take a swing at him and feels the air around him shift as though moved by great wings. He gets only the briefest glimpse of Castiel before everything seems to fade then vanish.

When he comes to he is stood over the bodies of the people who once hosted the demons, their eyes are burnt out and their faces are contorted in agony. He turns to Cas to tell him that such an extreme reaction was completely unnecessary only to find his friend staring at him with an expression that can only be called fear in his large blue eyes.

_Artemis_


	3. Chapter 3

_I'm sorry this has taken so long. I've been working every hour under the sun lately, spending time with friends when not (and the boyfriend) getting tattoo'd and celebrating getting a year older. Hopefully things will calm down soon and I'll be able to get back to writing properly again._

"What the hell, Cas?" Dean demands as he looks at the bodies in the parking lot. This is not good. This is very not good. "You couldn't have just mojo'd us out of here?"

"I didn't do this, Dean," the angel hisses. He is hunched, almost as though he is curling in on himself in an effort to appear smaller and less threatening, and the fear is still clear in his eyes though Dean suspects that he is one of the few people who would ever see it or know it for what it is.

"I don't see anyone else here who could burn people's eyes out of their skulls," the hunter responds but his instincts, numbed by the brutality of the massacre around them, are starting to kick in and he knows that this is not the place. This will be noticed and Dean knows that they cannot afford that. "Just get us the hell out of here." He snaps. Cas stiffens, his normally impassive face somehow losing even more emotion and even his eyes seem to shut down. It is something that Dean has only seen in his angel a few times, something that he always hoped he would never see again.

"As you wish," only the slightest break in the monotone of the angel's voice tells Dean that there is something else wrong here, something else that is bothering Castiel, then the world jerks and spins and Dean is back in Bobby's front room.

The other two hunters are just about to make their way out of the front door, a clear sign that Castiel's sudden disappearance rang the right alarm bells in their minds. It is only then that it occurs to him that there was the possibility that Castiel would not be strong enough to come to his aid. At least he knows now, he figures, and it is not something that he will need to think about again. Instinct seems to alert Bobby and Sam to the fact that the Dean and his angel have returned to the house and the two move away from the door with an alarming determination. Bobby's face is a mask of concern and annoyance, a familiar sight with the older hunter.

"What the hell happened?" He demands, stalking towards the pair of them. Dean turns his attention to Castiel.

"I'd like to know that myself," he mutters, meeting Castiel's eyes fully for the first time in a long time and watching emotions flicker in their blue depths even as his own anger courses through him. The angel returns his stare, though it is obvious that he is still concerned about something.

"If I had an answer I would give it to you," he hisses and Dean makes a disbelieving noise. None of them have forgotten the events of the last couple of years, none of them have forgotten the secrets that Castiel has kept from them. "I have learnt my lesson, Dean," the angel whispers, "though hardly from the greatest of human examples, I would not lie about this. I don't know what happened to those demons but I have every intention of finding out."

"Their eyes were burnt out," Dean snaps, "and you're the only one I know who can _do_ that."

"There are many other angels, Dean," Castiel's reply is reasonable but it is the last thing that the hunter wants to hear. He does not want simple reason and mysteries. He wants an answer. "Not all of them were killed during my," the angel stops, seeming to search for a term, "lapse of mental stability, some of my brethren may have intervened. I cannot begin to speculate on the reason though."

Dean stares at Cas, every emotion rattling through him as he tries to decide if he believes what his friend is trying to tell him. Before the souls, before Crowley even, he would not have doubted the angel's words for a second. Part of him longs for that simple time, the time when Cas was his best friend and things were so simple between them. The time when the only thing that he had to worry about was the idea that his feelings for his friend might run deeper than maybe they ought. The time when everything that Castiel was to him was held deep and buried for fear that someone would use it against him, the time when he was afraid to even admit to the angel how much he meant. He longs for those days, for the simplicity of it all and the easy trust. He hates that he cannot take Castiel's words at face value any more.

"I will endeavour to find the answer we need, however." The angel is gone before Dean can object, clearly he still has not learnt the benefit of a simple goodbye, and the hunter is left to explain to his brother and father figure what happened. It is then that he realises that he has very little idea of anything after calling for his friend. It is then that it occurs to him that whatever happened could not have been purely Castiel because otherwise the angel would not have looked so afraid of the outcome. It is then that he concludes that a loss of control on Castiel's part is one of the few explanations and that would have left even him blind, deaf and probably dead. It is only then that it occurs to him to look for another answer and the ones that his mind start to feed him do not leavbe the hunter feeling over confident.

_Artemis_


End file.
